Layng Martine Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host Doug Burke. And today we're here with Layng Martine. Layng Martine is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been recorded by music legends Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, The Pointer Sisters, Ray Stevens, Trisha Yearwood and Reba McEntire. He's written 15 top 40 country hits including two number one his.
Layng also had several crossover hits with The Pointer Sisters' Should I do it and Elvis Presley's last number one hit song, Way Down, which was number one of the charts the day Elvis passed away. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for best country song for co-writing the Greatest Man I Never Knew. His memoir, Permission to Fly is available for downloading on Amazon.
So why don't we start at the beginning with Run it in, which first tells me about the memoir.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. My memoir is called Permission to Fly. That title came because permission to fly is what my mother gave me. Early on, she set me and my rampant curiosity loose to explore, make mistakes. And when I did make mistakes, she did not rescue me. Instead, she convinced me that I could rescue myself. I fell for that. I tried everything that interested me. And this assurance that I could rescue myself was the key to figuring out just who the hell I was, because I really did, I tried a lot of things. I mean, I hitchhiked completely around the United States, 7500 miles, East Coast, West Coast, North, South, worked on ranch, got picked up by every single kind of person you could conceivably imagine, gypsies, drunk people. But I also had jobs starting when I was very young, like eight years old. I applied for jobs, and they wouldn't take me because they would get arrested, they said. But I started selling things door to door. And I wanted my own money. I want to buy baseball cards and streamers for my bike, and ate eclairs, which I happen to love. And I hated to ask for money. So it was much more pleasant to have my own. These products, which were available on the back of comics, the first one was a salve for rashes and stuff. And I thought, "Well, who the hell is going to buy this stuff?" But it turned out everybody wanted this stuff or something. It's called Cloverine Salve. So I sold them door to door. The deal was that you'd sell, I think, 12, and then you'd send a portion of the money back to them, and they'd send you another 12 if you wanted them. But I also sold greeting cards, and then later on I sold bedroom slippers door to door. I mowed every yard, vacuumed every swimming pool, washed every car, drove people to the airport or wherever they were going.
Doug Burke:
Benny Goodman's yard.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. Benny Goodman, yeah. Because yes, my mom moved to a rural part of Connecticut during the war when my dad was gone, because the rents were cheap. And she was a writer. So she didn't have to be in an office every day. But she did have to have easy access to New York City. So this was about an hour from New York. And initially, the neighborhood was plumbers and carpenters and kind of normal people like us. But after the war when America began getting richer and more prosperous, wealthy people from New York City began to buy summer houses, weekend houses all around us. And these new people wanted somebody else to mow their lawn, wash their cars, et cetera. So I started knocking on doors. And one of the doors I knocked on was that of Benny Goodman who at the time was the most famous clarinetist in the world. And what I learned from him, it's hard to put a value on. But the very first morning I went to work there, I was kneeling in a bed of roses weeding, and over the top of the apple trees came this sound of a clarinet playing musicals scales, just ... Over and over and over. And every day I went to work there, that was what I heard. I filed away the fact that the most famous clarinetist in the world practiced every day. So there were an enormous number of lessons over the years from him, including the way he treated me when I made mistakes and so on. And I tried to be half that wise raising our boys. We had three boys.
Doug Burke:
So you were very industrious and entrepreneurial from the age of eight frankly. And 12 and 14, working mowing lawns in the neighbors, selling stuff door to door. And you got in the fish taco business with Cheeky Fish Tacos and the store burns down, and you're bankrupt.
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And you decide to become a songwriter.
Layng Martine:
Well, I had wanted to become a songwriter when I was going to college. I think I was 20 or 21, I can't remember which. But I was painting a house one summer. And all my friends were interning for big companies, which they were very excited about. Merrill Lynch, Burlington Mills was one.
Doug Burke:
American Can.
Layng Martine:
American Can. Yeah. They were working for these giant companies. And they couldn't wait to go to work there. And I thought those companies would hate me and I wouldn't like working there. So what am I going to do, because the track seemed fairly beaten to these companies. And I wasn't living near anybody else who really did anything differently. Of course, I saw Benny Goodman. But I never in my whole time working for him, it never ever crossed my mind that I would ever earn a nickel one in the music business, not one second. But this summer, I had my little radio. And it played this beautiful song called Abilene. I don't know if you know it. But Abilene, Abilene, prettiest town I've ever seen. And I thought, "That is so wonderful. I wonder if I could write a song." Because I was addicted to songs since I was little. I mean, I loved Nat King Cole, and Tony Bennett, and these people. And then it segued into Rock and Roll. And suddenly Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Platters, songs like that. And Elvis. I thought, "God! This is the greatest thing going." But honestly, the idea of writing a song never crossed my mind until I was 20 or 21, however old. I didn't have an instrument or anything. But this summer, I just said, "I'm going to write a song." And I wrote one. And because I was near New York, I turned over my Elvis Presley records, and it led me to a company called Helen Range, which happened to be based in New York. And I thought, "Okay. Well, I'm going to go there. But I got to have something to take them, to show them the song." So there was a bar on Broadway called The Tuff Bar. It was inhabited by music people. Songwriters, record producers, singers, blah, blah. It was also a 10 minute ride from my college. So I went down there one day. And I didn't have the guts to go into the Tuff Bar to inquire what the hell I do with my song. But at the third day, I went in. And there were these guys in there. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon. There were only two people in there. There were these handsome, very cool looking black guys. And they saw me coming a mile away, because I was this white kid with corduroys and button down shirt, and I ain't got no money. And so I asked them if they knew where I could make a demo, because I didn't play an instrument and need to hire people. And the guys says, "Does that song have music?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "How it got music? You don't play nothing?" I said, "Well, I just sing it." Guy says, "In the air?" And I said, "Yeah." And he thought that was hysterical. But he told me where to go to make my demo. So for about 80 bucks, I made a recording of this. And they gave me a disc with my name on it and title of the song.
Doug Burke:
Swagger.
Layng Martine:
Swagger, yep. And I took it to Helen Range who is as close to Elvis as I could get, because they were his publisher on so many songs. And I just started there. The guy didn't love the song or anything. But it was my introduction. The guy was so cool. He had on a white shirt and blue jeans with his sleeves rolled up. And I thought, "I love this guy. This is the business for me." This is so much cooler than any of the guys at the time that I saw riding the train into New York in their suits and stuff, and I thought, "That's great for them but it's not great for me. And this guy is up my alley." And I loved him.
Doug Burke:
And that was Milton?
Layng Martine:
No. You got a good memory. This guy's name was Irwin Schuster. He literally became the most famous pop music publisher in America. He was on his way to becoming that, but he didn't know it, and I didn't know it of course. But he became a great friend. And eventually, many years later, he did become my publisher. Anyway, I loved everything about the actual marketing of the song. I loved taking my songs to people. I didn't get depressed when they turned it off. I just thought, "Well, it's my job to bring them songs like. It's not their job to like my song." So I just got into that mode. And I loved it. During the time that I had Cheeky's I was flying to Nashville. I flew to Nashville just this one day to find Ray Stevens, who I thought was the most eclectic music guy I could think of at the time. He loved rock music, gospel music, country music. There was nothing that was out of his range of ears. If I could play him anything, and if he didn't like it, I thought, "Well, this guy is as eclectic as I get. So if I could ever be his goffer, or have him be my teacher, that would just be the greatest thing going." So I flew to Nashville, took a taxi to his office. Had my little guitar, which my wife gave me when we got married. And just went in and asked if I could play a few songs. And by some miracle he said, "Yeah, you can play." So I played a few songs. And he said, "If you'll write me one song that I like as much as this song you just played, I'll record you." And I was not dying to be a recording artist at all because I'm not a performer. I don't like to go out and sing. But I would do anything not to be in my fish and chips place, in my fish tacos place. So I went home and I just kept sending him songs. And after about nine months of sending him songs constantly and having him say, "Oh! That's almost." Or, "That's a good B side." Or, "I like it, but you kind of lost me there in the third like." Or whatever the things he would say. One day, we were in our backyard and people were putting suntan lotion on each other. And somebody said rub it in. And I had my guitar there, and I just said, "Rub it in, rub it in." My wife popped her up and she said, "Has that already been a hit?" And I said, "I don't think so." And she said, "Well, that sounds like a hit to me." Went to put her back down. And I wrote this song Rub It In. And it just sounded great from the minute, that day, it was finished. And I sent it to Ray. And he called up at fish place and said, "This is a smash hit. Come down here and we'll record it." And we did. And that record did actually become a hit in a few big cities like Houston. But by the time it had proven itself and was ready to spread elsewhere, it was no longer summer. People in November didn't really want to be playing a beach song. So I started using my version as a demo. And I played it for the producer of a guy named Billy Crash Craddock who was having big hits at the time. And the producer loved it. And it became a number one country record and a top 20 pop record. And then later this commercial Glade plugins, pug it in, plug it in. So that song has been kind of a little miracle in our family. But it all started in our backyard in Connecticut. So you just never know where things are going to start or happen.
Doug Burke:
So first recorded in 1971 by you in Ray Stevens office?
Layng Martine:
It was at a studio, a very famous studio at the time called Clement Studios, owned by Jack Clement who was a very famous guy. His career went way back. But among his many things that he did was he engineered A Whole Lot of Shaking for Jerry Lee Lewis. That's pretty incredible.
Doug Burke:
And did you meet and work with Cowboy Jack?
Layng Martine:
I knew him, but no. He owned the studio but he didn't run it or anything.
Doug Burke:
And Ray Stevens is also in the Songwriter Hall of Fame with you.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. Me with him actually.
Doug Burke:
Not as equal, is it?
Layng Martine:
Well, I don't know about that. I mean, you think of these people like Chuck Berry or Tank Williams and think, "Oh my God! Not even close." But the idea that you could be even in the same breath as one of those people is sort of impossible.
Doug Burke:
But not afraid of novelty songs, Ray. The Streak, and Ahab to Arab. Not just about novelty.
Layng Martine:
No, because I mean, Everything is Beautiful, that's as good as it gets. I mean, that's fabulous ... That was the thing that made me go to him. Going to him was not my idea. One day, I left my fish taco place and went into New York because I was just so desperate to try to get somewhere. And I went to a guy who had been a long time friend and I told him that I was looking for an eclectic ear somewhere. And he said, "Well, how about Ray Stevens?" And honestly, that was just the most light bulb idea. I went from his office down to a payphone on Broadway or 7th Avenue, whatever, and called Ray Stevens office and asked if he was going to be there the next couple of days. And a woman said, "Yeah, he will." So the next morning I went and got on the plane and went down there and was lucky enough to get to see him. It was such a great choice, because he is so smart. I mean, I would play my song. 20 seconds maybe afterwards, he would give his comment. And it would be so helpful, just that 20 seconds. No on and on and on. And sometimes it would just be a shrug that sort of said, "I can't help you there. I don't know. It doesn't do anything for me." But once in a blue moon, he would say, "Layng, that is a smash." And when that happened, I thought, "He's right. And anyone I play it for who doesn't agree is wrong. And I will just keep playing it." I gradually got to anticipate what he was going to say. I mean, it's just an interesting ... When we first moved there, I had a song that had the word escalator in it. So this is like 1972. He said, "Layng, take my word for it, most people have never been on an escalator. They have no idea what you're talking about. Say something else." So that was an example of someone with a more culturally eclectic pallet or ear that helped me just use the simplest, most basic words that added either description or color, or information, but didn't require any particular locale or whatever. All you had to be was a human being.
Doug Burke:
Rub It In is recorded by you in '71. It makes for some regional progress. You use it as a demo. And I love the Billy Crash Craddock video. The outfit he's wearing in his-
Layng Martine:
Yeah. I never even saw it. I didn't know there's a video.
Doug Burke:
Oh no. It's on YouTube. But he seemed like a very charismatic, top of the industry at the time.
Layng Martine:
And he was a lovely person. And I think he had been a drywall guy. And his manager, who's a brilliant guy names Dale Morris, who subsequently managed Alabama and now manages Kenny Chesney was the manager at the time. And Dale was a lifelong friend. I mean, we are like brother and brother still today. He's a little older than me but we're kind of the same era.
Doug Burke:
It's early '70s. I know that the lyrics itself have a certain risque feel at the time. I don't know if today people would say the same thing. But did you have a lot of pushback on that?
Layng Martine:
No, really. I didn't. The demo that I used, which really was a record, had been produced by Ray Stevens. And it is a fantastic record. I mean, Ray is a brilliant producer. And he did background parts, and blah, blah. Pushback came where people said, "That doesn't sound country to me." I agree, because it really didn't. But Billy Crash Craddock was recording things that really were not that country either. But when you added fiddles and steel guitar and his southern accent and soul, it becomes country. And so I never had anyone who said it was too sexy or too ... Except my mother in law. My mother in law said, "That's dirty." And I said, "No, really. It's just cuddly. It's really not dirty."
Doug Burke:
You used the words sacroiliac in the song as a rhyme as I recall.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. Put it on my back and my sacroiliac, and a dab on my chinney chin chin. It's funny. In my record, I mispronounced it. Instead of saying sacroiliac, I said sacroliliac. But it stayed. And it's fine.
Doug Burke:
Is that a part of the body?
Layng Martine:
I think it's the very bottom of your back. Yeah, sacroiliac. Couldn't believe it when I came up with that rhyme. It's a miracle.
Doug Burke:
But there was no controversy about the sexiness of the lyric?
Layng Martine:
Not that I ever ... People would say it's cute or sexy or something like that. But I don't think anybody didn't play it. I may be mistaken, I don't know.
Doug Burke:
But went to number one on the country charts?
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And so did you have a number one party?
Layng Martine:
No.
Doug Burke:
They didn't do them back then?
Layng Martine:
No. My number one party was to go home and actually be able to pay for my hamburgers.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember where you were the first time you heard it on the radio?
Layng Martine:
Probably the first song I ever heard on the radio was when I was still in college. It was this song called looking for boys. I had taken that title into these guys who were these genius kids. They were only a year or two older than me. They had written and produced My Boyfriend's Back, the famous song. And I ended up going in there one day. I was just bringing them my songs. And I brought them my songs for a year or so every time there was one. But this one time I came in with the title Looking for Boys. And they loved it. They all pitched in their thoughts on it. But they were tied up in litigation. So they went back to one of the high schools in Brooklyn where one of them had gone and found these three other girls and called them The Pinups and recorded it exactly as they would have with The Angels. I got to number 108 in Billboard. That was called Bubbling Under at the time. They would start at 100 and go maybe 120. That wasn't actually on the big numbered chart. But I did hear that on the radio. And they were very fair. There were three of them and one of me. And they gave me half of the writers' credit to the song instead of dividing it into quarters. So I thought that was pretty remarkable.
Doug Burke:
Because that was your first royalty check?
Layng Martine:
Oh God! I mean, I don't even know if I got a royalty check. I mean, maybe it's something like five cents or something.
Doug Burke:
For making the Billboard 108?
Layng Martine:
Yeah. I mean, once in a blue moon that appears on my BMI statement. But probably never earned a total of $40 or something.
Doug Burke:
So your Cheeky Tacos store has burnt down. And you write Rub It In. And do you remember your first royalty check from that song?
Layng Martine:
Yeah, because that was from my record. And I think it was just like $600 or something like that. I mean, all the numbers are so different now, because I mean, you have to remember you could but a pretty good house for $25000. So $600 was not peanuts. And our rent was $215. So that's three months rent, which sounds like, "Okay, great. Well, now you need another $600." Which is true. But I was loading trucks and being a bartender and painting radiators and doing anything I could to stay alive. So that 600 bucks was a big deal when I got it. With Rub It In, that Billy Crash Craddock one, I do remember that. That was a good sized check. And that wiped out all the advances that Ray Stevens had given me for ... He was paying me 200 bucks a week, which is a lot of money for someone to get as an advance at that time, because there, for one thing, no assurance that he would ever get that money back. But when I got my first check for Rub It In, I think Ray had been giving me money for, I don't know, a couple of years anyway. And it wiped all that, which was just such a great feeling to see going into the plus signs, into the green, as it were.
Doug Burke:
And so you relocate from New York. You never finished college. You had gone to Dennison and transferred to Columbia and was pretty close to graduating. Did you ever go back and get your degree?
Layng Martine:
No. It's interesting. I have 15 credits to go. Actually, they're the same 15 credits that I earned at Dennison but did not transfer to Columbia because the basic courses like Western Civilization and so on had to all be taken at Columbia. There came a point when I was so obsessed with songwriting. It was all I was thinking about. And it sounds ridiculous to leave a good like Columbia, or any school, with 15 credits till you graduate. But I had already wanted to quit for like a year and a half. So I never regretted it. I mean, my take at the time was that I was never going to do anything that that degree would be required for. And it turned out to be true. But I was just lucky and probably in general it's a good idea for people to complete stuff.
Doug Burke:
But you have two little infant boys. I believe the second one, if I understood right, was being born while the-
Layng Martine:
Yeah. The day the restaurant burnt down, our son Tucker was born. Tucker is a record producer too, and a really good one.
Doug Burke:
So your wife is in labor while your Cheeky Taco restaurant is on fire?
Layng Martine:
That's right. That was a hell of a day. I mean, all those things help build up your ability to handle stress, I promise you. You have things like that happen and ...
Doug Burke:
If I can survive this, I can survive almost anything?
Layng Martine:
Well, it's funny. You don't really think of that kind of thing until afterwards. On that particular day, I mean, Linda's contractions had begun. And at the time, you could kind of predict by the length of one how long until the other. So she said the baby is going to come for X hours. So you just go out there, which was like a 40 minute ride. And Linda is very tough. I mean, she is better than I. She's got guts to burn, always has. And so I went out there. And my employees were standing outside the restaurant, and the windows were all broken. And it was just ... Inside, all the tables were tipped over, and the insolation was hanging down. Like I said, Spanish moss. It was just wet and smelt like burning. I mean, it was horrible. I don't know. I just said, "Okay. Let me find out if Linda is at the hospital." And I turned my car around and stopped at a payphone. Couldn't reach her. My sister told me that she had gone to the hospital, driven herself. And baby Tucker was born that day. And I didn't tell anybody who was there, which was my parents and Linda's parents, at the hospital, because that was such a downer. And this event of Tucker being born was such an upper, I didn't. And we all went out to dinner. But the next day, I just sorted it all out. We had sold our house, because we had actually also sold the restaurant. But when the fire happened, the guy who was going to buy the restaurant did not want to buy the restaurant anymore. So we were suddenly without a house. I mean, the house had been sold. And the guy didn't want to buy the restaurant. But I had already rented an apartment in Nashville. So we just went. And my wife, when we made the decision to move to Nashville had so much courage because most people would've said, "Well, you've got to get a steady regular job now. You got to quit fooling around and everything." But she didn't. She said, "No. Let's go to Nashville," because Rub It In has this flurry of success while I was at Cheeky's. And so we didn't think we were totally dreaming. And we came to Nashville. And I mean, I was a bartender and I did load trucks and paint radiators. And I was a teamster, which is a very hard thing to be. It's very hard to get a union card to be in the teamsters. But it's really valuable because your pay goes way up. And you check in. I mean, if you check in at 8:30 and you check out at 4:31 or something, you get one extra minute. I mean, they pay you for every ... So it was really organized. And I had great respect for it, because I needed every nickel that it paid. And the way they operated at the time was if you want a regular, where you came every day, let's say at midnight or whatever, you were called a casual. And that meant that they would call you when they needed you. And so in the middle of the day, at Ray Stevens, I might get a call that said, "Can you be here at 4:30?" Or, "Can you be here at midnight?" Or whatever. But not knowing if that was going to happen. And a sidebar of information to that that I learned from the people who worked there was you never tell them that you can't come, because they'll stop calling you. So anytime they called, I went, including no matter what. If I was exhausted, or whatever, I went to Roadway Express, which is the company that I was working for.
Doug Burke:
So you're writing for Ray Stevens in the mid '70s. And there's a bunch of songs that we can talk about in there that broke the Top 100. But it wasn't until '77 with Way Down that you had your next number one on the country chat by Elvis Presley?
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Let's talk about that song.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. Well, that song was so interesting to me because I wrote it in a tiny office that Ray had given me, which didn't look like much to anybody except me. But it literally had been a broom closet. It was a four by four room. And I had never had any little private place that was just mine. I would write in an empty room in his offices, or somewhere. But nothing that was dedicated to just me, and I could leave my things there or whatever. But one day I asked him if I could have this little broom closet for an office. And he said, "Sure. You want that tiny?" Yeah, I do. And then he built me a little shelf. And I had a little recorder on it called Wollensak, which lots of people made lots of very successful demos on. It was a tiny little reel to reel tape player. And I went in there every single day, every single day, all day and wrote songs. And I would just sing and play and stump my feet. And I was literally 20 feet from Ray, and about 10 feet from his secretary. And at some point years later, I realized, how could they not have just said stop, you're killing me. You're driving me nuts. You got to quit for at least an hour. They never did. And so it was quite close quarters. And I would just go in and just write a song, whether I felt like it or not. And I would collect song titles and write them on a napkin or a piece of paper and stick them in my pocket. And periodically, I would transcribe them into a notebook. When I was stuck for an idea, I would just flip through these notebooks. And I think Way Down may have come from something like that. I don't really remember the genesis of the title. But I remember writing the song and taking it into Ray. And Ray said, "I really like that." He said, "Let's make a demo of it. There's nothing going on today. Let's call the band and make the demo." Well, we made this, what I think of a really wonderful, exciting demo. He did the background part, which is way down. And his band played the rest. And I sang the lead part. And when it was finished I just thought, "Well, everyone in the world is going to want to record this." But nobody did. I played it for every single person who was even a vague contender in Nashville. Nobody even held it overnight. And then one day, I was out pitching my songs, which is what I did when I wasn't writing. And I sat next to this very famous publisher named Bob Beckham. He was one of one or two very top publishers in Nashville. He knew every single person there was, and had been around forever, even though he wasn't very old. Everyone knew he had a direct line to Elvis and that Elvis's record producer named Felton Jarvis was extraordinarily famous at the time and legendary, but no one ever saw him. He was just this incredible ghost rumor superstar. I knew that Felton Jarvis came to Bob Beckham's office every few weeks and picked up songs that were contenders for Elvis. And Bob Beckham said, "Hey Layng, you work your ass off. Do you have anything for Elvis? If you do, bring it to me at 3:00 or whatever." At the time, you had to have a disc cut. You couldn't bring a tape. Elvis didn't listen to tapes, only discs. He'd put them on the little cheap record player in the studio and if he liked, he'd record it. And if he didn't, he'd sometimes use it as a Frisbee across the room. So I went and got a disc cut, which I had to clear with Ray because it wasn't cheap. And I took it over to his office. And about a week later, Felton Jarvis the producer called Ray Stevens and said, "Ray, Elvis is just going to go crazy for this song. He's going to love it." And I heard nothing for three or four months until I again on the street heard Elvis is looking for songs. And I thought, "Oh God! I'll take my song back to Bob Beckham." So I got another disc cut, took it back. But 30 minutes later, Bob Beckham's secretary calls and says, "Layng, I think Elvis has already recorded this song you just brought over." And I said, "That's impossible. I would know." And she said, "Let me check." So a minute or two later she calls and says, "Yeah. He recorded this in the Jungle Room, October whatever date, 29th, 30th, something. It's done." That's impossible, I thought. I jumped in my tragic little car, with no headliner but five colors of paint on it, a little Volkswagen. I drove home and told my wife that Elvis had recorded my song. Felton Jarvis called me up one day about a month later and said, "I am over at Creative Workshop Recording Studio mixing your song." Mixing is when they put all the tracks together and make it sound like a record. He said, "Do you want to come over and listen while we mix?" And I said, "Absolutely." So I went over there, and walked in the studio. And as I walk in the door, I hear obviously the introduction to my song. And I thought, "God! This is unbelievable." And then I heard him start singing my song. This is just amazing. Of course, he wasn't there. I'm just hearing the recording. And I go in, and Felton says, "Just sit here." And he turns down the lights, and he starts playing, and he starts mixing the record. And I just leaned back on that couch and I just thought of being in my mom's car in seventh grade with my girlfriend, the first time I heard Heartbreak Hotel. And a switch had flipped in my heart and literally never went off. And now I'm 20 years later in a Nashville Studio listening to Elvis sing my song. And I just thought, "This is just impossible." But it happened.
Doug Burke:
I really like the chorus in this song. It's different, especially the way it winds itself up.
Layng Martine:
I mean, I can feel it, feel it, feel it. Is that what you mean?
Doug Burke:
Yeah. And way down, where the music puts-
Layng Martine:
Way down, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Way down like a tidal wave, way down where the fires blaze, and then the way it ends.
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Because it doesn't end in a rhyme.
Layng Martine:
Well, it's got three rhymes. Way down where ... I can't even remember the words.
Doug Burke:
Where the music plays, like a tidal wave.
Layng Martine:
Where the fires blaze. Way down. Yeah. So three rhymes in a row, and then way down. Yeah, I don't know. It's funny construction how it happens. You just don't ... You just kind of know if it doesn't feel right. But how it gets there is something else again. I guess the closest thing in writing songs to music is just music is a heightened form of speech or song is just a heightened form of speech. So way down. I realized that Way Down is a good example. I have three songs that I realized later were sort of forms of onomatopoeia where it sounds like what it is, words sounds like what it is. Way down and rub it in. Kind of rubs. And then this other song called Wiggle, Wiggle. It's king wiggle, wiggle. It's kind of wiggled. And I realized that that was a good example of lyrics matching melody and helping to contribute to the message. But it wasn't really intentional.
Doug Burke:
I find that chorus is a big contrast to the verses. In other words, Elvis is pretty excited about a girl in the song. And then it's making him way down, which is kind of the opposite. What is in that?
Layng Martine:
Well, the feeling is just way down deep inside of me is the drift of it.
Doug Burke:
It's not down in the dobs. It's way down inside me?
Layng Martine:
Yeah, right. Exactly.
Doug Burke:
Where does the music play?
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Like a tidal wave? The fires aren't really the Cheeky fire?
Layng Martine:
Sexual fires.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, okay. I just needed to be clear. 100 magic fingers.
Layng Martine:
100 magic fingers. Have you ever been on those things in motels where you put in a quarter and it shakes like that?
Doug Burke:
I've seen it in movies. And I found that -
Layng Martine:
They don't have them anymore.
Doug Burke:
I know.
Layng Martine:
Unless it's a real old cheapie, maybe they would have it, where wiggle still shimmies like that.
Doug Burke:
Now they have chair massagers.
Layng Martine:
Yes, exactly.
Doug Burke:
The Brookstone chair massager is the modern version of the original magic fingers.
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
After a hard day driving a truck. Yeah. And so Elvis records this. Do you know that it's going to be the single that gets promoted to number?
Layng Martine:
No, I didn't.
Doug Burke:
When did you just-
Layng Martine:
Incredibly odd thing happened. Moody Blue, which is the name of the album, had been a big hit single. And it had been number one. And out of the blue, this song, I think it's Let me be There, the old Olivia Newton-John song, which I believe was also on the album. But anyway, out of the blue, this friend called me and said, "Hey Layng, I just got a box of this new Elvis record. It's called Let me be There." And I thought, "Really?" I went over there. And there it was printed on the RCA label and everything. But something had happened. Somebody had worked some political magic and gotten these records printed. That wasn't the RCA single at all. But it was on the RCA label. And this guy is just some incredibly clever person had these things printed and had it shipped to the radio stations to look like the single. But it wasn't. And RCA knew that. But they suddenly had this problem. Everybody thinks that this is the single. And it want anyway.
Doug Burke:
Just like bootleg.
Layng Martine:
Yes, perfect.
Doug Burke:
The original bootleg.
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
That's a collector's item.
Layng Martine:
That really would be. That would be. I probably had one at one point. But anyway, I don't know how they killed it, or why it died, or how it died. So my record was supposed to be the next single. And I had heard that sort of speak on the street. So this thing interrupted that. But they did put it out in June. And it did go to number one. But the craziest part of it was we were Rhode Island in the summer. And I was playing tennis. And I got a call at the tennis court from a friend who was also another record promoter. He was just a friend. I hadn't hired him. A record promoter's job is to get your song played on the radio. But he was in touch with Billboard magazine. So he called up and he said, "Layng, I just got the advance numbers for next week's Billboard, which are available usually on Tuesday or something. And your song Way Down is number one next week in Billboard." And I thought, "Oh my God! That is the greatest thing going." Because even though something is doing well, you just never know if it'll get ... I think it had been number two or close the previous week. But you don't know. So I thought, "Oh my God. That's just amazing." And literally, two days later, I was on the same tennis court. Another phone call, and it's from my lawyer in Nashville. And she said, "Layng, are you near a TV?" No. "Well, Elvis is dead." And I just thought, "Well, this is just the most unbelievable occurrence in the world." I mean, not only is it incredibly sad and so on, I mean, in the actual practical sense, I had sent this guy so many songs to an address that everyone had and rarely ever heard back from. But literally the last new song he ever recorded in his life is Way Down. And it happens to have been number one on the day that he died? That's just too crazy, because I really did go back to that seventh grade ride to the movies with my little girlfriend in my mom's car when she was driving us. We were whatever, 14. And this incredible life change had occurred when I heard his singing Heartbreak Hotel. And then the idea that in any way our lives or careers or whatever would be lined up in any way. And then just the idea that he had learned the song by listening to me sing it was just so absolutely unbelievable. I never met him. I didn't know him. So anyway, the most famous singer who ever sang in the world recorded my song. That just seemed impossible. But it had happened. And it was a feeling that was so transcendent and so unbuyable. I mean, if I had gone into a business and made tons of money or something, I couldn't possibly have bought this feeling that I had of this boyhood idol having recorded my song. I mean, I took his first album to my seventh grade music class. It had four pictures of him on the back. I don't know if you ever saw that album. It's four, like a quad thing of just this ... I mean, every kid in the school, boys or girls, whatever it is, he's definitely the coolest guy who has ever lived. And we all just went apeshit for him. And I wrote this in my book, this morning with the lead sheet word says Elvis Presley and then to one side Layng Martine Jr. And I thought, "That's just impossible." I mean, how does that happen? But sometimes things do.
Doug Burke:
So they didn't have a number one party?
Layng Martine:
No. Nobody had number one parties, no.
Doug Burke:
Back then.
Layng Martine:
No.
Doug Burke:
But in the aftermath of Elvis passing away, was there any focus on the song?
Layng Martine:
Oh God! Maybe Doug. I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, we had these little kids. And I mean, I didn't know who won the World Series. I didn't even know who had the number one pop record. I didn't know anything. I was just absorbed in trying to stay alive and pitching my songs and writing songs. And I was obsessed with it. I mean, I wrote songs on the weekends, at night when everybody was asleep, and let alone all day. And I never wanted to be back in a fish taco place, or in writing ads, which I had done before that on Madison Avenue. I mean, I had a good job for a wonderful company. And I loved the guy who ran my ad agency. But it just was not for me. And the idea of ever being back there again was just so appalling that I was literally obsessed with just what can I do to ensure that I will never ever be in that spot again.
Doug Burke:
Trisha Yearwood did I Wanna Go Too Far?
Layng Martine:
Yeah. I Wanna Go Too Far was written with another totally brilliant songwriter by the name of Kent Robins. He wrote a bunch of songs. One of the more notable was The Judge record of Love is a Alive, love is alive at the breakfast table, blah, blah, blah. Incredibly deep feel, graduate of Vanderbilt. Came from a small town in Kentucky where feelings and family and heart and soul kind of ruled. And he and I just totally clicked. We were just crazy about each other. And I was on a trip literally zooming down the runway at JFK going somewhere, to France, I think. And I just thought to myself, "I want to go too far." Meaning I just want to see everything, do everything, be everywhere. And I wrote that title down. I thought, "This is a fabulous song title." And it was I want to go too far, I want to go too fast, I want … It sounds like a sexual thing. But it was just the adventure of it. And I suggested it to Kent after we got back. And he loved the idea too. And it's just a great song. And Trisha made a wonderful record of it. And she's just an amazing singer. And today, I heard something by her just, I don't know, a week or two ago. And I thought, "God, man!" I know she's not having her moment like she was at that time. But I would knife my mother to have a song recorded by her again. And I'm just going to try to keep with when she's recording and try ... Because I would take no royalty at all if she would record a song. She is that good. And there are plenty of people I feel that way about, plenty of people. But she's one of them. And so Richard Leigh and I have this song. It's just a total home run for a real singer like that.
Doug Burke:
But tell me that song. That's one of the questions I ask every songwriter is what's an on the shelf song that you would have to hear recorded? And what voice would you want to record it? So you're beating me to the question punch here. You have the song in mind for Trisha. What is the name of the song? Tell me about it.
Layng Martine:
It's called Two Cups of Coffee. And it's just a love song. And it's perfect for her. And if she ever comes up, I'm going to get it to her.
Doug Burke:
You said earlier that the song The Greatest Man I Never Knew was too sad for people. I don't think there's such a thing as too sad in the country. But it's the first time I've heard that, that it was too sad. All these people passed on it for being too sad. And this song, you say is just a love song. And I don't think there is just a love song in country music. Tell me about the love song.
Layng Martine:
I won't talk too much about it, because I don't want to be spraying those lyrics out, because they're just ... It's just we nailed it. And so I'll just leave it there. I think writing a love song that you just feel, in this case 25 years later, 25 years. And I listen to it and I think, "That's perfect." It's as timeless as air. And they'll be a person somewhere along the line. Johnny Mathis, I sent it to him. Some guy thought he might record him. It's that kind of a song. Those Johnny Mathis records. Most of my songs are boy/girl songs. The tension, the excitement between just people who love each other in the sexual sense, there's tension between men and women that's so exciting, even just flirting with someone that you just don't even know, it's just flirting. It's exciting. It's wonderful. It's a connection. And that's what I heard in All Shook Up and you ain't nothing but a hound dog. There's just a magic in it. And so many of the rock and roll songs were based on that. That's what it's about. And that's what grabbed me about ... That's what made me want to write songs. And so most of my songs, I mean, I had this little song that actually bought our house today. It's called Wiggle, Wiggle, that I mentioned before. The lyrics are I told you not to do that on the dance floor. You said you wouldn't do it public anymore. Sunday through Friday you kept it all in. Now it's Saturday night and you're at it again, wiggle, wiggle. Honey, cut that out. It's just boy/girl tension. And that is what I was kind of eating up with. It wasn't anything that I was pandering. That's what occurred to me when I would go into the studio or to my little room to write songs. Those were the emotions that I felt, because I've just always been totally crazy about girls. And just the magic that happens between, again, people who would have sexual attraction to each other. So I didn't write many love songs. I mean, I said they could be interpreted as that. I'm certainly attracted to the person. But it's not a love song in the sense that we probably mean, like the Johnny Mathis records.
Doug Burke:
But your memoir is a love story of sorts.
Layng Martine:
Yeah, it is.
Doug Burke:
You want to talk about that and whether it's influenced any of your songs, and in particular, are there any songs about the love of your life?
Layng Martine:
Well, there's one really early on called Linda Lets Me Live. And that's just, I think, such a key to any friendship, whether it's just a friend or whatever. But definitely being married to someone who just lets you be the way you are. They just decide somewhere before you even get married, if you ever do, that I just like this person. And whatever they do is fine with me. Obviously, the other end of that is that the person has to get to do things just because they want to that makes you happy. But once you find someone who's just a good person, I mean, she just lets me live. I mean, I would go to the waffle house at 2:00 in the morning. She never said, "Where are you going?" I mean, she wouldn't even know I was gone unless she tapped looking for me with her arm. Just total encouragement in every way, including moving to Nashville. 30 years old. She was beautiful, smart as a whip and never thought I was a loser, never thought, "You better get your ass in gear. I don't want to be driving around in these cars my whole life." Never said anything. It was just plus signs, plus signs, plus, positive, positive, positive.
Doug Burke:
While we get to that, one of the other songs you wanted to talk to was The Pointer Sisters song.
Layng Martine:
That song Should I Do It is exactly this, the tension between boys and girls. It says, "I swore when he hurt me so I wouldn't see him anymore. But today, he called my name and I can feel that same old flame. Should I do it? Should I call? Should I fall? Should I do it after all? I know when he holds me tight I'm going to turn on like light. I know when we're in his car - just so far." I can't remember. But it's all about ... I mean, that song was written in minutes because it's just so simple and basic. And I love it. It's one of my all time favorite songs. It says what I think we all go through. You get mad at somebody, and then you see them and you go, "I'm not mad at them anymore. Should I do it? Should I fall? Should I ... "
Layng Martine:
Anyway, again, it's the same thing. It's Wiggle, Wiggle. It's Way Down. It's Rub It In. It's just the boy/girl thing. I'm saying boy/girl, but it could be just whatever those persons' sexual feelings are.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. That one is that feeling that you know you're in love, or you feel this could be love.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. Where you're just crazy about somebody. You're helpless.
Doug Burke:
When you think about them all the time.
Layng Martine:
At the bridge of that song it says, "Oh! I'm so lonely and he's so fine. Or maybe I should swallow my pride just one more time. Should I do it? Should I fall?" It's us. It's human.
Doug Burke:
So you wrote that song alone. And how did it get to The Pointer ... Well, Tanya Tucker recorded it first than anyone.
Layng Martine:
Yeah, she did, yeah.
Doug Burke:
And then in December that year, The Pointer Sisters released it and it went to number 13 in the charts.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. It went to number one on a bunch of charts. But then Billboard, it went to 13.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. And Billboard US, overall. How did it get to them, I mean, after Tanya had recorded it?
Layng Martine:
This guy that I mentioned originally named Irwin Schuster, who I had first played my very first demo for named Swagger had become, as I said, the most famous pop publisher in the world. Yes, certainly in America. And when I had been with Ray Stevens sending my songs to other cities and getting absolutely nowhere, it was really frustrating, because I loved The Pointer Sisters, just for example. I was sending them songs, never hearing a word. Couldn't get them on the phone. Nothing could happen. So I thought, "Well, Irwin can get all these people. Maybe we could work out a deal together." So we did. We made a joint venture. And right away, he got two Pointer Sisters and got the theme to a kids dance movie. The song was called Believe In The Beat. It wasn't a hit single type thing. But it was kind of the theme to this movie called electric Boogaloo, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. And then Barry Manilow, which was not a single hear but was a single in a bunch of other countries.
Doug Burke:
In the UK.
Layng Martine:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
I Want To Do It With You.
Layng Martine:
Yeah. I Want To Do It With You. Again, another boy/girl thing. So he was an incredibly exciting access that he had. But he jumped off his balcony of his house after three ... I guess we'd been together three years or so. Three or four maybe.
Layng Martine:
I don't know what happened. But he was just the kindest, sweetest, most gentle man. And something happened in his life, or in his brain, or whatever. And he died one day. That was just crashing. It creamed me for a long, long time. I really was just wiped out by that. I loved him so much. He and I were such a team. I called him literally every single morning of my life to just go over who was recording, and if he'd had a chance to listen to a new song or whatever the business of the moment was. And suddenly not having that was just incredibly heartbreaking. I mean, I just cried my eyes out. I mean, a girl told me on the phone that he had died. And I just fell down. I mean, it's just things like that.
Doug Burke:
He was a close friend and you didn't know he was suffering from depression?
Layng Martine:
Well, he lived in New York so I didn't see him every day. We primarily talked about songs. When I would have a spell that I didn't think I was writing very well or didn't have any new ideas that I was very excited about, he would assume me that that was a normal thing. And feel, feeling and feel was so important to him. And I remember one time I thought, "Well, I need to work on that." "No, just leave it. It's perfect. It feels. It doesn't matter." And it evolved. And I realized at some point, maybe early, maybe later, I don't really know, that how a song makes you feel, that's the message. And I began to search for songs that were examples of that, where the feeling you got was opposite to the lyrics. And one of the best examples was Oh Lonesome Me. Everybody is going out and having fun. Look at me, I'm staying home and having none. Blah, blah, blah. Oh Lonesome Me as one of the happiest songs I've ever heard. It's just like - It's just so happy. And so this thing of how does a song make you feel, let alone does it make you feel, that's the message. That was reinforced by Irwin, because I'd send him songs and he'd just say, "I just love this. I'm just playing it over and over." And you usually say I love the message. He would just say, "I love the way it feels. I love the way I feel when I listen to the song." And I said, "That's what we all want." And how many times there are songs from growing up, this was later than growing up. A song like 99 Tears, I don't know if you know that song. I have no idea what that song is about except 99 Tears. I have no idea what the verse is. I don't know anything about it.
Doug Burke:
I think it's one chord the whole time?
Layng Martine:
That's very possible, Doug.
Doug Burke:
The music doesn't change much.
Layng Martine:
That's very possible, yeah. I think that rings a bell. Yeah. And so this thing of how does it make you feel. And so I-
Doug Burke:
Too many teardrops for one heart to be crying.
Layng Martine:
That's good. Good for you. Jesus! I couldn't begin to do that. Anyway, this thing of how does the song make you feel? That is the message. And if you can do things that make people feel deeply, whether it's happy or sad. I remember a very famous producer, Chips Moman. I would bring him my songs and I'm not sure he ever recorded any. Maybe he did. But he said, "Layng, you got to write some more sad songs. There's a lot more sad people in the world than there are happy. And your songs are happy. You need to up your quantity of sad songs." I said, "Well, I'm just not very good at that."
Doug Burke:
So we'd love to invite you to Park City to come to the Songwriters Festival if you would, or play at Mountain Town Music Event. Are you still playing at all?
Layng Martine:
No. I never played out. I played out twice in my life that I could think of. And I'm just not cut out for it.
Doug Burke:
No, I get that. Not everybody is.
Layng Martine:
It's interesting with my book. I've given these talks, and I've talked in some book tours and at book clubs and at events about my book. And I love it. It's just so odd, because I didn't like playing my songs out. I was never interested in doing that. But I love talking about this book, because it's about these interesting people, and the interesting things that happened along the way, which to me is this human side of life that is just the most fascinating to me. I didn't realize it. I had no idea when I wrote this book that I would ever want to talk about it. But what I found is that the first day that I did talk about it, which was at Parnassus in the end of May, I love this. I love these people. These people just taught me so much. And they're colorful. And these events, one of which is incredibly scary is incredibly scary but it's interesting. It makes you. And so I have really been surprised, first of all, at how much I loved working on the book. It was unbelievably hard, incredibly hard. But how much I loved it. I never dreaded going to it ever once. And I had always read that the writers dread the page, the blank page. For some reason, I didn't. I loved it. And then the idea that the finished product, I hold it and I think there isn't a damn thing I would change. Not the graphics, not the words, not the way the pages lay. Nothing. And it's just so exciting to hold it. And it's just such a pleasure to talk about it, because if someone asks like you did about Benny Goodman or the advertising job, or working for my very first job interviewers, when I was eight, when I interviewed with this guy who was running a restaurant. I love this guy. He didn't hire me then, but he hired me four years later and became a source of money for my whole teenage years growing up, because I'd wash his cars. But he was a crazy person. He was always saying, "Goddamn it! Get your ass out here." He used to fire me every 15 seconds.
Doug Burke:
He fired you repeatedly.
Layng Martine:
And then the next morning he'd call and say, "Where the hell are you? Goddamn it! Get your ass in here." It was just like, "Okay. I love this guy." And I knew he loved me even though he was always ... And so very interesting people. And I love telling them about them.
Doug Burke:
Learning how to work with bipolar managers is a very strong skillset to learn early in life, at the age of 12.
Layng Martine:
I guess he was, yeah. To not take it personally. He doesn't mean anything. He doesn't hate my guts. I didn't do anything to him.
Doug Burke:
Bipolar managers are everywhere in life, perhaps.
Layng Martine:
God! Well, I'm sure. I've been luck not to have one except for him, I guess.
Doug Burke:
Except for him. Well, this has been fabulous. I got to thank you so much. I am so grateful that you and other songwriters are willing to sit down with me and share the real window of their soul.
Layng Martine:
Thank you, Doug. And if you come back to Nashville, call me and we'll meet up, coffee or something else.
